


A Crown of Wolves

by Unreal_Kitty



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Coronation, Extended Scene, F/M, Fix-It, Game of Thrones Fix-It, Gen, POV Theon Greyjoy, Theon Greyjoy Lives, Theonsa - Freeform, Wolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:33:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23229424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unreal_Kitty/pseuds/Unreal_Kitty
Summary: After the Battle of Winterfell, Sam warns a wounded Theon to “take it easy,” and prescribes an annoying amount of bedrest. But Theon will not miss Sansa’s coronation for anything.Filling the “wolves” prompt for the March 2020 Theonsa challenge
Relationships: Theon Greyjoy/Sansa Stark
Comments: 6
Kudos: 77
Collections: Theonsa Challenge 2020





	A Crown of Wolves

The Great Hall was as crowded as Theon Greyjoy had ever seen it. 

More crowded than when the last alliance of the living had gathered to prepare for the end of all things. More crowded than when King Robert had thrust his less-than-welcome attendance upon Winterfell, bringing his Lannister family and the doom of the Starks with him. 

More crowded even, than it had seemed when Theon first arrived in the North as a boy. Then, the massive room had seemed packed to the brim with cold, stern faces, strangers’ faces, all looking at him with suspicion in their eyes. In reality, there were likely only a few dozen Northmen in the Hall, the rest of the lords and their retainers having returned home from the Iron Islands, triumphant. But young Theon had felt like a squid washed ashore, surrounded by wolves and bears and moose and other strange beasts. 

Now, the Great Hall truly was packed to bursting, yet there was not a stranger to be seen. Everyone, from battle-scarred knight to peasant child, had the same familiar look in their eyes. _We have looked upon Death, yet here we stand,_ the look said. _We are the living. We are the North._

You can’t stand shoulder to shoulder with a stranger against an army of deadfolk. At the end of that long night, everyone’s a wolf, and everyone’s a squid, and the rest is but wind. 

Bear and Moose and Giant and so many more, all the Northern Houses, great and small, gathered in the Great Hall. For who would miss such a day? They had all fought —and bled — fiercely for this moment. It is not everyday you crown a Queen in the North. 

The very walls thrummed with excitement, and the air was dense with jovial chatter. Mead flowed with abundance, as did arbor gold —sent by King Bran in the South. Theon, however, did not imbibe. 

While Sam Tarly had finally allowed Theon to leave his sickbed, he issued strict orders to drink nothing but water, and eat nothing but bread or porridge. The wound in his belly, the maester—er, apprentice maester— had said, needed time to heal.

“Take it easy,” Sam had said in his lowcountry accent, “It’s a right near wonder you aren’t dead! If I had my way, you’d stay in bed for another week at least.”

“The Drowned God himself couldn't keep me from this coronation,” Theon had replied. “I’m going, and that’s the end of it.”

“Suit yourself,” Sam had said with an easy shrug that made Theon instantly take to the crow. “Just promise you won’t do anything too strenuous.”

“On my honor, what little there might be of it,” he had sworn, half-jokingly. 

At first, Theon couldn’t imagine what “strenuous activities” he could possibly get up to while standing around waiting for the coronation to begin. But the sight of a couple hundred victory-drunk Northerners clued him in. 

“What a time to be alive, eh Greyjoy?,” said Lord Manderly, clasping Theon’s shoulder with practically enough force to knock him off his feet. “Good wine, good people, and a Stark to sit the throne.”

Theon winced as pain crackled through his body, but found it in him to grin. He began to reply, but a stirring at the Hall’s wide doors interrupted him. Silence swept through the vast room like nightfall. The crowd set down their cups and stood, all eyes fixed at the doors, which rumbled open. 

Sansa.

She was a fairytale. She was every heroine in every one of Old Nan’s stories. 

Her gown adorned in red weirwood leaves and branches, she was the Old Ways rendered in flesh. 

She was a Queen. 

Theon had seen queens before, of course. Cersei, Daenerys, his own sister even. In general, he was not overly awed by pageantry or a lofty title. 

Yet, seeing Sansa framed in the doorway, the light turning her hair to the precise shade of the sky just before the sun dips beyond the sea’s edge...well, awed was the only word for it. He was overcome with it, like a wave crashing against his body. He tasted salt and didn’t bother to wipe the wetness from his face. 

Sansa proceeded down the length of the Hall, as graceful as ever, her eyes firmly in front of her.  
The crowd—her subjects—bent the knee as she passed. Theon was grateful for the excuse to kneel. His legs were feeling oddly...wobbly. 

_Steady man_ , he thought, and tried to blame it on his long bedrest and still-healing body. At his shoulder, he could have sworn Lord Manderly was eyeing him with a knowing grin. 

Nearing the front of the room, Sansa reached a solid wooden throne ordained with direwolves and smoothly turned toward her subjects, still kneeling before her. Her face betrayed no sign of nervousness or fear. Her blue eyes shined with purpose and her lips, well, they didn’t have much to do with anything, yet Theon couldn’t quite manage to tear his eyes away from them. 

He was so transfixed, he nearly missed the crown gently lowered onto her head. But once it was there, it startled him. 

A crown of wolves. 

Theon had attended the coronation of a different wolf, not so long ago, although it felt like another age. Hells, he had been among the first to pledge his sword and bend the knee. But poor Robb hadn’t worn a crown that night. And poor Robb hadn’t lived long enough to keep it. 

How could he? The lone wolf dies. 

Theon studied the two direwolves encircling Sansa’s head. The metal beasts raced and capered in the glint of the torchlight. 

_That’s what was missing,_ Theon thought. _Robb walked into the Frey’s hall with no crown on his head and no wolf at his heel. A Stark must have a pack. Me and Grey Wind, we weren’t in there with him._

A familiar thunderclap stirred in the pit of his chest. He forced it back as Sansa alighted on the throne like a gyrfalcon returned to roost. 

_Not this time. I’m right here. Where I should be._

__Some god, of the North or the sea, or something in between, must have carried Theon’s thoughts to Sansa’s ear._ _

__For a delicious, fleeting moment, her gaze found Theon in the throng. And she smiled._ _

__  
_It was a secret sort of smile._ _ _

__

__A smile filled with sunlit childhood days and spooky nights by the fire with Old Nan’s voice at your ear.__

____

__A smile that calls a man home from sea._ _

It was the sort of smile born in a blanket of snow, fished off of a cold prison floor and dusted off for safe keeping.

_A smile for a wolf to give a kraken._

__

__

A smile from one wolf to another.

A smile that gives a man his name, and names him, “my love.”

__  
The crown glinted on her head. Two wolves, howling together. Two wolves, singing.__

____

____

__She would call, this she-wolf queen, she would call out in the night for her family, for her love, for her pack._ _

__And he would answer. He would always answer. From this day until his last day._ _

**Author's Note:**

> As always, huge thank you to my dear friend Harry Dresden for her invaluable brainstorming, idea-bouncing, editing, and overall willingness to listen to me blather on about my OTP (which is NOT hers) for hours.


End file.
